Star Trek is one of the most popular television shows ever created. While the original series alone is well known, its spinoff shows and motion pictures are the most successful in Hollywood. Michael Gaines and Darrell Skeels, two Star Trek veterans, take a look at current news and looks back at what made the franchise […]

Since 2005, World Of Warcast has been bringing listeners some of the best information about Blizzard’s world-famous MMORPG World Of Warcraft. Every week, Michael Gaines and Eric Rice talk about the most important topics, and some not so important ones.

Join Pamela Horton (@pamelahorton13) and Michael Gaines (@starmike) for a trip down video game memory lane. As a companion podcast to Pam’s Drawesome Gaming series, we expand upon the topic from that day’s Drawesome Gaming.

Do you watch movie and find yourself whistling the theme, or watch an episode of Game of Thrones and cheer when the music swells when the good guy wins? In each episode of OST, Samantha Quintas (@thezenlibrarian) and Michael Gaines (@starmike) talk about music used in movies, TV, and video games.

Take a trip in the TARDIS as Michael Gaines and Nicole Wakelin travel through the Whoniverse, talking about the news and information they find about one of the longest running and beloved television shows of all time.

Original Series t-shirts at amzn.to/2EZVeLC pic.twitter.com/Jdv5UuIEEB

Star Trek Adversaries now on Steam

Ten Forward:

Chris on Twitter: Being assimilated by the Borg, tortured by the Cardassians, living another life in “The Inner Light”, possessed/captured by numerous aliens; when does it become unrealistic on how much Picard or anyone can endure?

Did not get into alpha this week yet. Ali couldn’t Monday, and then Wednesday turned into hell.

Been doing follower missions.

Mount and mog runs. Tailoring/enchanting finally at 800.

Went through old pics.

This Week in WoW

Mage Tower currently active on North American realms

Legion Timewalking this week. Pet Battle event next week

General News

Blizzard Balance can now be gifted – send a friend an electronic gift card with a personalized message

Remote Auction House: Blizzard confirmed in a blue message that the reason they closed the RAH is that a “tiny fraction of one percent” of their user base was actually using the RAH and it was not worth their time and effort anymore to keep it updated

Battle for Azeroth

In-Game Communities:

Quoting Wowhead: “This system will allow you to have broader communication options with fellow community members, including multiple text channels, text channel history, simple role management, quick join, voice integration, roster listing and calendar invites. You will be able to be part of multiple communities at the same time, in addition to your current guild.”

Interview at Pax East with lead designer Daniel Stahl and lead encounter designer Morgan Dey about Island Expeditions:

More intelligent AI in NPC encounters

Some AI groups may be aggressive – others may be passive and require you to chase them down

Weather improved and may be a factor

Different mobs may appear at different times of the day

“Fog of War”

Blizzard has confirmed people will still be able to get class mounts after BfA has launched

Tribute to last year’s BlizzCon Costume Contest winner Kazplay – when Horde invades the Stockades, they encounter a human female in a cage with a crumpled costume next to her: Text: “Look, it’s just a costume! See? Feel it! Now will you tell them to let me out of here? It was just a joke! Hogger wasn’t really terrorizing Stormwind!”

Alpha News:

Battle for Lordaeron scenario now playable on Alpha

Heart of Azeroth item levels show ranges with iLevel starting at 265 and going up one point per level from there. Highest they show is at level 300 with an iLevel of 564

Mag’har and Dark Iron Dwarves now playable in Alpha.

Maghar racials:

Ancestral Call – Invoke the spirits of your ancestors granting you their power. Increases a random secondary stat by 102 for 12 seconds.

Open Skies – Increases mounted speed by 10%.

Savage Blood – Reduces the duration of Poisons, Diseases, and Curses by 10%.

Sympathetic Vigor – Increases pet health by 10%.

Dark Iron Dwarves: still no reports on what the Mole Machine racial does

DSC nominated for Peabody Award in the entertainment category to “honor the most powerful, enlightening and invigorating stories in television, radio and digital media. Other nominees: Better Call Saul, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. TNG won a Peabody award in 1988 for “The Big Goodbye” (Holodeck, Dixon Hill).

DSC Season 2 began filming yesterday!

Jonathan Frakes will direct ep 2 & 10.

Many ask who will play Spock, but he wasn’t the first officer in “The Cage”, that was Number One played by Majel Barrett.

Chief Engineer Denise Reno of the USS Hiawatha, played by Tig Notaro!

Last week Amazon started selling exclusive DS9 shirts. They’ve now done the same with TNG.

Ten Forward:

Chris on Twitter: Which TOS character (Scotty, Uhura, Chekov or Sulu) deserved to have more screen time and backstory better told?

Other possible rewards for Island Expeditions, like in the Timeless Isle

When asked whether quest and profession progression will be gated behind dungeons and raids: No real discussion yet on profession progression, although he did say he thought ending final part of certain questlines end in a dungeon was “super cool, as it is the best way to tell the end of the story”.

Felt that artifact weapon system was interesting in the beginning of the expansion but not at the end of it. Lots of choices in the beginning and none in the end.

Discussion about making certain things accountwide — seemed to think things were pretty OK the way they were. Too much accountwide stuff and characters lose identity, but opening areas, flying, etc., seem to be good kept accountwide.

Battle for Azeroth

Mag’har Orcs and Iron Dwarf allied races will be available after completing the Battle for Azeroth war campaign. Zandalari and Kul’Tiras will be unlocked later in the expansion.

BFA alpha lasting longer than in the past. Beta polishes features and features are still being added to alpha.

Six emissaries for each faction – 3 home continent, two neutral (Tortollan and Voice of Azeroth) and a War Faction with quests on the enemy continent.

8.0 prepatch

Likely a few weeks before the expansion

Will introduce the Burning of Teldrassil and Battle for Lordaeron. May be new mounts themed around Night Elves and Forsaken in conjunction with this event.

New details on PvP

New world PvP system called War Mode: players toggle PvP in a capitol city on any server. This will put them in a separate server shard, away from the PvE characters.

War Mode gives extra rewards and Azerite, and also allows access to special world PvP events.

PvP gear system revamp: conquest point system returning in the form of a bar you fill up to earn new gear each week. When you’re finished with a set, you can move up. There will be ways to skip ahead.

Time /played: Estimated 850-900 days /played. 434 days /played on mage alone.

20,400 to 21,600 hours

8,760 hours in 1 year (not counting leap years)

Done over 6 years – 6 years has about 122,400 hours (without leap years)

Average of 5.5-6 hours per day, every day, or 38.5 – 42 hours per week

Ren: Did my own /played calculation on all active toons – came out to 6554 hours or 273 days /played. Sounds like a lot, but when averaged over 10 years (didn’t play for 4 years out of the past 14) it comes out to less than 1 hour per day /played

Alpha News

Changes to quest log – looked at first like the quest log limit was going up to 50. Not true – but it seems like some quests no longer count toward the 25 limit – including account wide quests such as many battle pet quests

New Alpha build includes several class talent changes

Alpha Profession changes:

Enchanting: many new ring and weapon enchants, glove enchants for gathering professions

– Question: Is Blizzard both encouraging more alts AND not paying enough attention to making game alt-friendly?

– If I had to pare down my alts, who would make the cut?

Mike

So close to finishing up this rep from Hell.

Thanks to Ali for filling in last week about alpha

Infinite Timereaver mount dropped while doing timewalking. That was fun.

Alpha is still fun, but obviously limited in scope at the moment. There was a 1GB patch.

Maybe I’ll try tanking again.

I have a ton of quests I need to finish up.

The Argus version of the flight whistle should have been available at honored, not revered.

This Week in WoW

Not much – Arena Skirmishes, then World Quest Event next Tuesday

On the horizon: Noblegarden (4/2 – 4/9)

(Mike – I HATE NOBLEGARDEN)

News

Hotfixes:

Mythic Antorus now available for cross-realm groups, though not through LFR. “To join a public group for Mythic Antorus, just open Group Finder (hotkey: i), select ‘Premade Groups’, then ‘Raids-Legion’, then click on “Find A Group”. That returns a list of many public groups that are available to you. Start typing ‘Antorus’ into the search bar at the top, and you’ll be prompted to select a difficulty.”

Battle for Azeroth

New Alpha Build changes:

Achievements to unlock Dark Iron Dwarves and Mag’har Orcs added

Dark Iron racial mount: core hound

Latest build tagged “beta” instead of “alpha” and new invitations out

New “boop” emote

Some new enchanting stuff:

Swift Hearthing: bracer enchant to speed cast time of hearthstone

Gale-Force Striking: weapon enchant to increase weapon attack speed

First Aid confirmed going away – bandages will be under Tailoring and antivenoms/pots will be under Alchemy

New customization options for Blood Elves – three new faces and glowing gold eyes

Azerite bonuses datamined: Set bonuses also going away, being replaced by Azurite empowerment on armor

Several class specific traits, but also several that appear to be multi-class

Traits that increase primary and secondary stats by a set amount

Absorption traits – traits that shield or absorb a set amount of damage